Pages

Wednesday, 16 July 2014

(vol 1) CHAPTER 23: “CampNaNoWriMo - Day 16”

Well, I’m half way through the month and things aren’t going
as well as I’d like. However, they’re not going as bad as I was starting to
think they would either.

CAMP UPDATE

I just haven’t found the times to write. It’s been poor and I
keep thinking back to last November when I set a personal best word count,
wondering how the hell I did it.

But thankfully I got two half days off work. I managed to
break 1000+ words Monday and Tuesday as well as have a positive brainstorming
session that fleshed out parts of the story I was struggling with. The rules of
the tattoos and the history of the artists are clearer now.

DAY 10 – 611 words

I carried on with Chapter
4: Tattoo but found it difficult to get Julie from the front door of the
tattoo parlour to the back where she would meet Michael and decide on a tattoo.
I introduced the character of Mandy, a girl who is bored of life and just works
for the hell of it despite not really liking people or responsibility. It gives
Julie someone else to talk to before meeting the man that will ink her and also
allowed a little time for her to be hesitant. I may or may not keep this part.

DAY 12 – 369 words

Still working on Chapter
4: Tattoo and Julie is still stuck in the front of shop with Mandy. I feel
like Mandy is like industrial glue and has forced Julie to become ‘stuck’.
Ironically she was introduced to allow a smooth transition through the scene.
Best laid plans and all that.

DAY 14 – 1081 words

Today something clicked and I managed to get Julie away from
Mandy, the boring counter girl and through to Michael the tattooist. I like the
way the two interacted but I once again found myself struggling. This time I felt
it was too forced that she would let a tattooist give her a random design for
her first ever tattoo, one that she’d already appeared reluctant about. I got
to a point where she was at the doorway and could either leave the shop or
change her mind and sit in the chair. I was as unsure as Julie. And that’s why I
stopped there. I needed to sleep on it.

DAY 15 – 1380 words

This was my most productive day in a while and not just because
of the word count. I sat and reread yesterday’s work and then just had a mini
brainstorm session. I went back to my early thoughts on the story and
remembered something I had intended to do with the tattoos by making them more
of a lost language.

Suddenly loads of ideas popped into my head. Some of this
will have to be included in the first rewrite as I don’t want to lose momentum
by going back again but I’m happier now.

Next I finished the scene in the tattoo parlour (although it
was rushed and loose – lots to fill in later) before starting Prologue: History part 1. This was a
back story I originally planned to have to start the whole thing but will now
be split into three parts. After that I completed Chapter 5: Back Home which is a short chapter between Julie and
Eleanor before returning to the stranger tracking down Michael in Chapter 6: Getting Closer. Finally I started
Chapter 7: Back home which brings
Craig back home for an explosive confrontation with Julie.

FLASH! FRIDAY UPDATE

Just when I thought Flash Friday couldn’t get any better I experienced
12 hours of pure joy. I returned home from the London Film and Comic Convention
(see below) to find out via Twitter that last Friday’s entry ‘If You Go down
To the Woods Today’ had been awarded First
Runner Up. I was over joyed at the kind words Judge Betsy
Streeter had to say about my piece and couldn’t have been happier.

But it wasn’t over there. Upon returning home Monday lunch
time, I found my Twitter going mental again, this time telling me that my story
had been picked for Flash!
Points, a weekly article where Rebekah
Postupak critiques a story in a fair amount of detail.

Until now I’ve had some really nice feedback about my short
stories and Flash Fiction entries but this article blew me away. It was a beautiful
piece of writing in its own right and I will admit to having a lump in my throat while reading it.

It was an honour to have been picked and a big thank you to Rebekah for her
words. Confidence boosted.

I’m currently working on my Dog
Days of Summer entry, a 1000 word limit story following most of the Flash!
Friday rules. I hope I don’t disappoint.

SCRIVENER REVIEW

Scrivener is still working great. Something I’m finding useful
is having all my chapters separate so that it allows me to jump about if I find
myself stuck. I currently have three chapters with a couple of hundred words
each that will help me lead on in once I have more information about the
characters. It’s like I know where I want to be at the opening of certain
chapters and I’m waiting for the rest of the story to catch up. It sounds like
a weird way of writing but it works.

Still finding the character photos useful too. I had an issue
yesterday when I started writing Eleanor and, having just watched a program
with a Welsh character in it, I struggled to get the accent out of my head.
After a couple of seconds staring at Eleanor’s character card and she was back
to being English.

LONDON FILM AND
COMIC CONVENTION

Although it’s not about writing I thought I’d add a quick
piece about my adventures at the LFCC on Sunday.

I travelled up to Earls Court with two friends to mingle with
some of our favourite celebrities. After parking the car we tried to use our
phones to help guide us to the convention but, minutes later, we put the phones
away and just followed the barbarians. I mean, where else were they going?

For Christmas last year my wife had brought me tickets for
the LFCC (best wife in England) and I was over the moon. She also purchased
tickets for the Audience with Stan Lee panel (best wife in the world) as well
as a photo shoot with the legend of comics himself (best wife in the
universe!!!). It was amazing just standing next to the man who helped create
some of the most iconic comic book characters ever. If you haven’t guessed, I am
a huge comic book fan and a keen collector of Marvel, specifically X-Men.

Unfortunately, with such popularity (him, not me) our meeting
was fleeting; like three seconds fleeting. But it was with someone who I never
expected to be in the same room as so to have stood there and posed next to Stan
Lee was one of the third greatest moments of my life.

But it wasn’t all Stan Lee. I was inches from Summer Glau,
got a fist bump from Billy Dee Williams, watched Carrie Fisher get lost trying
to find the toilets, confused Robert Hayes with regards to whose wife belonged to
who and managed to get a selfie with the legend that is Jason Mews.

With crazy queues (us British do it best), friendly fans and
some amazing cosplayers it was quite a day.

And that’s been the highs and lows of my week. Still have one
more week to get the Dog Days entry complete and hopefully 'Tattoo' will move along
a little better now.

I can guarantee that next week won’t be as eventful or
amazing as the one I’ve lived through.